Liu Binyan (
The cause of death was believed to be complications related to colon cancer, his wife, Zhu Hong, said.
A crusading investigative journalist and devoted socialist, Liu became a popular figure in China in the 1980s for his literary exposes in the official party newspaper, People's Daily, on greed, corruption, and rampant abuse of power within the CCP system.
But he was eventually expelled from the party in 1987, along with two other leading dissident intellectuals, Fang Lizhi (
The expulsions came shortly after the government had clamped down on pro-democracy student demonstrators in January 1987, and then dismissed the nation's reform-minded CCP secretary-general Hu Yaobang (
The three intellectuals were denounced by Deng Xiaoping (
Few intellectuals in modern China were so daring or so persistent as Liu in publicly attacking and exposing corruption in the party. What was perhaps most remarkable about his career was that he did it as something of an insider, as a party member and a writer for official party publications in a country that has a history of very little public dissent.
But for that he paid a heavy price. He was expelled from the party twice, denounced as a "rightist" in the 1950s, sent to forced-labor camps, pardoned, rehabilitated, then denounced, re-expelled from the party, and eventually exiled.
He had a knack for saying what was on his mind, and for stubbornly insisting that the party was heading in the wrong direction, betraying the people and Marxist principles.
"He was one of the first people to challenge the party," says Merle Goldman, a professor of Chinese history at Boston University.
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
‘VERY DIRE’: This year’s drought, exacerbated by El Nino, is affecting 44 percent of Malawi’s crop area and up to 40 percent of its population of 20.4 million In the worst drought in southern Africa in a century, villagers in Malawi are digging for potentially poisonous wild yams to eat as their crops lie scorched in the fields. “Our situation is very dire, we are starving,” 76-year-old grandmother Manesi Levison said as she watched over a pot of bitter, orange wild yams that she says must cook for eight hours to remove the toxins. “Sometimes the kids go for two days without any food,” she said. Levison has 30 grandchildren under her care. Ten are huddled under the thatched roof of her home at Salima, near Lake Malawi, while she boils
RSS